Toby Hagon - Holden: Our Car 1856-2017

OUR CAR 1856 2017

TOBY HAGON and WILL HAGON

Unless otherwise stated, all quotations contained in this book are from interviews with the authors.

First published 2016 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd 1 Market Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2000

Copyright Toby Hagon and Will Hagon 2016

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Australias revered own car brand Holden will not quite make 70 when it stops being Australian, and production ceases in Adelaide (vehicle assembly) and Melbourne (engine production) in late 2017. That will be the end of the Australian motor industry as weve known it for nearly 120 years, of dreamers, designers, engineers and passionate car people making vehicles, for track as well as road, that suited this big, tough land.

Yet the company that produced the first Holden was nearly 100 years old when its name went on a car that it, rather than someone else, had developed. In its early days, designing and building bodies for imported chassis, Holden & Frost Ltd ended up with similar market dominance that its Holden cars later had in their heyday. They became giants, leaving the other half of the car market for their rivals to share among themselves.

So how was it that this venerable company came to dominate the Australian car market for much of its history? And not just in volume, but in image as an Australian car and what it meant to us as a national icon. Whoever else came along and Ford started putting its cars together at Geelong nearly a quarter of a century before Holden became a car name never managed to displace Holden as our car. Ford and Holden became arch rivals on road and race track, often with Ford giving Holden plenty to think about. But, to the very end, it was Holden above Ford and all the other brands and models that was the Australian car. Why?

Almost from the start it was a clever, innovative and energetic company. Yet all its previous, often glittering history making saddles for Australian soldiers, being involved with an overland telegraph line, making weapons and munitions for Australian Defence Forces in World War II counted for little when, hot on the heels of World War II and in conjunction with its parent company in Detroit, local engineers developed a car that they thought would suit post-war Australia and its people. And they got that first Holden spot on, in price, size and performance. Smaller and mechanically fussy British cars, that became confused on anything but billiard table-smooth surfaces, were ripe for a beating which Holden happily handed out.

Whatever happened to two-tone colour schemes, fins and hubcaps? The FB/EK series was the beloved vehicle of newlyweds and the chariot for Australian dreams.

The first secret to success was to have a company big and solid enough to provide a stable business base, so being owned by the biggest car company in the world was a good start. The next clever move was for General Motors (GM) in the US to have Australian engineers involved in developing what became a Holden. That said a lot about what the Detroit giant thought of its recent purchase less than twenty years earlier, way down here in Oz. It was one of GMs earliest purchases of an overseas operation.

GMs faith in Holden, along with the Australian flavour that went into the cars, was sensed by the public and dealers. It became an article of faith to support this local product, albeit that, within its first year on the market, waiting lists were already building. That immediate success led to an increasing number of people racing and rallying them, when those activities were burgeoning with post-war freedoms and optimism.

The Round Australia Trials started with a bang in 1953, but it took until the eighth of those before a Holden won. Contrary to what Holden was doing in sales (and entries in motor sport), early winners of these trials were two Peugeots, a six-year-old Ford V8 and four Volkswagens cars that allegedly didnt suit this country! Yet loyalty and belief in the Australian product saw a Holden entered into the Monte Carlo Rally some months before that 1953 REDeX trial. And Holdens 48215 (FX) was not disgraced, even on the ice and snow in Europe, against some very fancy competitors.

So many Holdens were being sold that people were hotting them up as well as using them hard, especially rurally, as well in trials and circuit racing. Early Holdens gave country folk an independence they hadnt previously had. Pretty quickly most towns had a Holden dealer and mechanic who could work on them.

It took Ford nearly twelve years before it was ready to take on Holden with a similarly-sized six-cylinder car made locally. When the Falcon appeared in 1960, it was no better than the first Holden and nowhere near as competent or modern looking as the fifth Holden model. Holden knew what the market needed, as well as having a wide spread of dealers and nearly three quarters of a million mostly grateful Holden owners to build on. After twelve years, there was still only one rival model and brand. Holden was making the most of an easy run, while others effectively slept, unwilling or unable to take on Holden.